If a new nuclear power plant were built at Nine Mile Point near Oswego, its developers say it would use fuel more efficiently and be safer than the three reactors already operating in Scriba.

The newly designed technology known as an Evolutionary Power Reactor, or EPR, would use 7 percent less uranium than the existing plants to generate the same amount of electricity, according to the reactor's designers.

The new plant would also have several new safety features including four emergency cooling systems, a super re-enforced containment building and fewer valves and other parts that could break down, the designers said.

The 1,600-megawatt reactor plant would be big. So big, that it would enable the Nine Mile 3 plant to generate as much electricity as the Nine Mile 1 and 2 plants combined.

But several hurdles must be cleared before one watt of electricity is produced.

For one, the project developers, UniStar, have yet to commit to building the new plant.

The design is so new that there are no EPR reactors operating anywhere in the world. Two reactors are under construction, one each in France and Finland, and others are planned for China and the United Kingdom.

The EPR was designed by the French-based Areva group and is an updated version of the pressurized water reactor found in most U.S. nuclear plants.

"The big difference is it's big," said Maureen Brown, spokeswoman for Constellation Energy, one of the companies in the UniStar group and the owner of the Nine Mile 1 and 2 nuclear plants.

Among the safety features of the EPR are a double-walled containment building that can withstand the crash of a large aircraft, four redundant emergency cooling systems and a "core-catcher" to contain reactor material during a severe accident.

The new design also has 47 percent fewer valves, 16 percent fewer pumps and 50 percent fewer tanks than most existing nuclear plants.

Not everyone is impressed.

Critics say the EPR may be more fuel efficient, but its size means more uranium will be stored at one site.

The environmental group Greenpeace International charges that a nuclear accident at the larger reactor would be a greater disaster than one occurring at a smaller plant.

"In the event of a serious accident the impacts could be vast, releasing large quantities of radioactivity into the environment," the environmental group said in a June 2008 report.

The Greenpeace report also said the tight construction schedule of the Finland plant has resulted in a number of shortcomings that could create problems. The opening of the Finland plant has been pushed back from 2009 to 2011.

"New reactor designs are inherently harder to build and control, because of their larger size and fuel burn-up which places high demands on construction," the report said.

The setbacks with the Finland plant are part of a learning curve, Brown said.

"In all likelihood, by the time we start building these in the U.S. we will have the benefit of lessons learned from four to five other EPRs in other countries," Brown said.